Saturday, November 08, 2008

We're on vacation, up in a hotel in the mountains. We're having the breakfast buffet, and as is typical, the kids have placemats and crayons to occupy them. Katherine, my oldest at 6, shows her picture and says, "What do you think, Daddy?"

"Looks like a shoe with windows," I say. "Is it the old woman who lives in the shoe?"

"No," she says, with the head tilt and eye roll that all 6yr olds master on their 6th birthday. "It's Miranda on the island. See, that's her Daddy next to her, and this is the boat that's going to crash on the rocks. She's calling to them, saying that they'll be safe on the island. See the people?"

"...."

She flips the paper back over, colors some more, and flips it back so I can see it. "What's the name of the monster, again?"

"Caliban?"

"Right, Caliban. That's him, there." Caliban has been drawn in red, and looks rather devilish.

Again the flip, the coloring, the flip again. Now Ariel is up in the sky, like an angel of some sort. "What else can I draw?" she asked.

"Books," I told her. "You need the magic books."

"Right!" she says, and returns to drawing. "Finished!"

I look at the final picture (which I have, and plan to scan when I get home). The books are in a tree. "Prospero keeps his books in a tree?" I ask.

"That is the entrance to his secret hiding place," she says, again with the head tilt and eye roll.

It may never actually happen, but I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that art class:

"What did you draw, Hailey?" "I drew a flower!""And how about you, Aidan?" "I drew a dinosaur!""Katherine? What did you draw?" "I drew the opening of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Act I, Scene 2."